Forgiveness is a Lifetime Away
by misslizzie1204
Summary: Booth reflecting after a case he had hoped he would never have to face.


**Sorry if anything seems OOC, this was written for a Literature creative task at school, and not originally as a fanfiction. I saw some similarities, however, after it was done, and thought that it may be appreciated here.  
Character death- sorry for that too, I normally don't like it but somehow they seem to write themselves...  
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine**

**Thanks for reading!**

Temperance Brennan. The name blended into the rest of the text in the file, typed mindlessly by an anonymous secretary earlier that afternoon. Words flowed across the page, listing the evidence, the clues, the suspects. My name was stamped across the top, titling me as head investigator. Stapled to the back were pages upon pages of hand written notes. Notes I had taken during interrogations, during meetings, after I had woken in the middle of the night from a sudden, vivid nightmare. All this redundant information was held together in a yellow manila folder, with that same name tattooed across the front in stark, black ink.

A picture was paper-clipped to the top left corner; a young woman smiled up at me, immortalised with her hair flying in the wind and her dress cascading out behind her. Her lips curved with laughter, her face warm and open and happy.

Other photos were contained inside the file. Heartless, scientific images, measuring the width of the stab wounds or the distance between the door and where the body was found. Some documented the injuries she had sustained; the gashes on her legs, the bruises along her arms. But this was the one image, the only picture that showed the girl as she had been known to the world; carefree, soulful. Alive.

I placed the file down into the box with trembling hands. It lay amid pristine plastic bags, each uniformly holding a piece of vital evidence. The knife. The clothes. A vial containing a single strand of hair. A smashed locket, with broken glass obscuring a picture of the woman and her partner, her best friend. I quickly slid the cardboard lid over the box's contents, obscuring them from view.

Silence reigned the squad room, normally so full of fervour and energy. For usually, the officers were working to save a life. Normally, they were collating evidence, piecing together the intricate puzzle pieces that made up a case. Normally, they didn't lose. But this once -the one time that it had truly mattered- victory had slipped through their fingers. They had been too late.

I lifted the cardboard box from my desk and walked towards the elevator. Those around me whispered, eyes full of sympathy, when they noticed me pass. They were sorry, I knew, that they had not been able to help me in time. But for them, this was just another unsolved case. No connection to the victim drove them to work at their best, no personal guilt or feeling of responsibility.

They were not in the apartment, when the door was broken down. They did not hear the splintering of the thinly painted wood, the smashing of the glass as it was torn off its hinges. They did not see the men run through the hall, or into the bedroom. I was the only one there when they took my darling Bones, bundled her struggling and screaming form down the passage and out into the night. I could have stopped them, I would have stopped them, had my brain not been hindered by the strangling influence of alcohol, my limbs heavied by its intoxicating weight. All I could do was watch as my beautiful partner was swept away in a wave of guns and yells and crashes. A car screeched outside, and all was silent.

Apart from the door hanging dejectedly off its hinges, the only sign that they had been there was a scrap of paper which had been blatantly nailed to the wall directly above our bed. I had ripped it down with shaking hands, read the few words it contained. It was a hazard of my job, but no one ever thought that they would be the one that was made an example of. Feeling somewhat protected by your badge and your connections, you work at removing criminals from the streets without thinking of the repercussions. It wasn't until you had a note in your hand and a beloved one missing that you even allowed the idea of a gang revenge hit to cross your mind.

The elevator arrived with a muted ding. Doors sliding open, the bleak interior was revealed and I stepped inside. Hitting the button for the basement, I stood and waited, my haunting memories the only thing keeping me company.

Everyone had worked so diligently, with the labs making their analyses in record time, and the other cops increasing their workloads. All because it was me. We followed their trail, with intimate detail. Traced the car and houses they visited, trailed the suspects through their mundane daily lives. The boss had allowed us to go over budget, extending the investigation long past the usual deadlines.

We were close, no one could deny it. Closing in, we had whittled away at the information we gathered, discarding the irrelevant and refining the important. Then, one cold afternoon, a photo of a new suspect came through the system. The moment I saw his face I knew he was the one. His eyes were dark and merciless, ruthlessly staring down someone out of the shot. After this new piece of information, all the other evidence seemed to fall into place. In a whirlwind of briefings and meetings and evidence gathering, we suddenly had a location. Teams were gearing up. Trucks were loaded with guns and warrants and medical kits. Adrenalin fuelled everyone as we travelled out into the dusk, winding through backstreets to avoid undue attention.

We had parked in front of the unremarkable suburban house. The garden was meagre, the paint peeling. A sleek silver car was parked in the drive; the same silver car we had been trying to track down for the past three weeks. Hope I could not quash flowed through me as I, surrounded by uniformed squad men, was shepherded up the drive to the front door. The door was pummelled down with the creak of breaking wood; a sharp flashback to the day Brennan was taken filled my mind. _No, _I had thought, _this is going to be different. This time they won't get to keep my Bones. _

It was then we all heard her shrill scream. Thudding footfalls. A whimper. Silence.

The elevator doors glided open and the lights automatically flickered on, revealing the basement archives. Row upon row of metallic stands seemed to extend into eternity, an alphabetised horror story detailing of the worst of human kind. Taking a calming breath, I began my arduous journey down. Past cases of theft, rape, murder. The tabs on the walls flew past. _Baker, Julia. Barrows, Frederick. Beckinsdale, Harold. _All other cases, most resolved, some gone cold. Even fewer like the one in my hands: failures.

I slowed as I neared a gap in the patchwork of cardboard. A name tag was already in place above. _Brennan, Temperance. _I lowered my eyes to the box in my hands. All that was left of a beautiful soul was contained inside. A beautiful soul whose journey was savagely severed. All because of me.

I knew justice would come. He had been taken into custody. His case was won before it even began; he was arrested with the knife still in his hands.  
My touch as light as feathers, so light, so gentle, I lifted the box and tenderly lowered it in place upon the shelf. I set my jaw and turned away. Justice may be forthcoming, but forgiveness was a lifetime away. Brushing my hand roughly across my cheek, I began to head back to the elevator. The doors slid open once more when I reached them, and with one final agonising gaze over my shoulder, I cut the lights, plunged the room into darkness, and stepped into the elevator.

**Not my usual style, I admit, but the task it was written for demanded certain literary techniques, hence some of the more...clinical aspects to the writing**

**A review is always appreciated, and if you think you like my stuff I'd recommend 'The Forensic Anthropologist in the Warehouse'**

**Thanks again for the read**


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